


The Pen

by Enina



Category: The Flash (TV 2014), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Depression, Other, Possible Character Death, Pre-Deathwish, Suppressed Anger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 23:33:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3956092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enina/pseuds/Enina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry knows that this is not how it was meant to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pen

* * *

 

Barry sometimes watches Dr. Wells when the other man's attention is on something else. He likes to think that he is quite subtle about it but he is still certain that the good doctor knows what he is doing.

These days, he is pretty sure that Dr. Wells knows more than he lets on,.

Sometime, he looks at him and remembers his mother, how she used to smile at him and gives him hugs and how she had always kind words for him when he was feeling sad and lost in a world he didn’t seem able to really fit in.

He also remembers how she laid dead and motionless on the floor of their living room, a cover over her lifeless body.

Joe thinks Wells has something to do with that night in which his mother died. Barry thinks that it would be an odd disguise to use for a man with similar powers to his – hiding behind the mask of a paraplegic. Certainly not unbelievable but… tasteless.

Then again, the man in yellow doesn't seem to own much taste considering what he did to a innocent woman. No, neither taste nor humanity.

The man in yellow...

His own personal _boogieman_.

Barry wonders whether Wells suspects something, whether he senses that he knows that there is something off about him.

Dr. Wells knows a lot of things, after all. Things he shouldn’t know anything about – like how this incredibly power feels that runs through Barry's boddy like living hot electricity. A power he has been connected to since the day of the accelerator explosion. Dr. Wells shouldn't be aware of the intense exhilaration that rushes through him at times, that sometimes can turn frightening when he realizes how little control he really has.

Barry sometimes imagines what it would be like to simply grab a pen and ram it into the older man’s neck at his full speed. Whether the strange with another man's face and name would have time to react or not. Whether he would be able to recover from something like this or not.

Cisco likes Harrison Wells, though, and so does Caitlin. Barry isn’t exactly trusting them anymore but he isn’t willing to actively mistrust them either. They are both good people, after all. They have proven it more than once and they saved his life…

Maybe they are right and Dr. Wells is just who he says he is. Maybe he is just a failed scientist who has lost his legs during a horrible accident that ended his life's ambition…

His mother always told him that he could do anything he wants as long as he just works hard enough for it and believes in himself. She was always so kind, she never lost her patience with him or his dad and – most importantly – she loved him just as much as he loved her and still does to this day.

Barry lost the belief in himself a long time ago. When people tell you often enough that you are wrong, that your mind is somehow messed up – has become messed up because your father is a monster, whether you want to hear it or not – you start to believe them over yourself after some time. You are just a stupid kid after all and all your insistence of what really occurred that night only causes trouble to the nice people who are kind enough to take you in…

Barry has learned to live with having an innocent father in prison and being unable to help him. He has learned to stop bringing this up in front of Joe or anybody else. He has learned to accept that somehow his life has broken along the way and he is not clever or strong enough to put it back together.

Something else he learned is to ignore the feeling of wrongness that has been surrounding him since the day he lost his mother. It has gotten a bit better since he became be the Flash but it is still there – a persisting itch in the back of his mind that nearly drives him crazy if he thinks too hard about it.

Barry knows that this is wrong. All of this, everything involved with his life. It wasn’t meant to be like this.

Sometimes, when he is with Iris, he thinks that she is slipping through his fingers more with every passing day. It has been like this for years and he has never acted on this unsettling knowledge because…

Because it isn’t supposed to be like this. He loves her, he really does and – he thinks – she loves him back, maybe not like he wants her to but she still loves him, but it is all wrong.

Barry has started to see a lot of things clearer since the accident and with each passing day – each passing hour, really – he can make out more of everything that shouldn’t be and still is.

The man in yellow didn’t just kill his mother back then, he did kill the life he was supposed to have.

The realisation had been sickening and he was nearly unable to return to S.T.A.R. labs afterwards as the notion to face this man in the wheelchair who may or  maynot be Dr Harrison Wells scared him to no end.

Barry has never been a violent person, he doesn’t like hurting others and he really believes there is always a way around it if you are persistent and lucky enough to find it. He knows that, deep down, there is goodness in every person, some have just forgotten about it, some have never been made aware of it and other try to lie to themselves about it.

Barry doesn’t know whether it really matters anymore. He isn’t really Barry Allen, not like he was supposed to be, and maybe this means that he doesn’t have to play according to his own rules either.

Growing up, he always had nightmares about that night, about his mother’s screams of fear and concern. Concern that was meant for him because she loved him and she didn’t want him to get hurt no matter what happened to herself – at times, during those days when every single movement felt like such a chore and he just knew that the world is a dark, cold and unloving place, he hated her a little bit for it.

Why couldn’t she have let him come with her?

Barry wonders why the man in yellow killed his mother. This question has followed him around since that night and as he is watching Dr Well, who is going over some data of some measurement regarding his speed they did just a little bit ago, he wonders what would happen if he simply asks him.

Would he deny it? Would he expect of Barry to believe him? Would he _attack_ him?

Barry hasn’t told Cisco and Caitlin about his suspicions, his fears. He knows that they probably wouldn’t believe him. Despite him being their friend because Dr Wells is so too and their mentor at that. He wonders whether he knew them in that other life and whether they were friends there as well. He also wonders whether they are going to hate him and about what his father is going to say and how he will be able to deal with the disappointment and pain in his eyes.

Sometime, Barry dreams of himself in a different life, a more vibrant one. There are other people like him, speedsters, some his enemy, some his friends and some his family. There are other heroes too, not just Ollie and the others but… gods and dark knights and female warriors.

Friends that are no more or have never been…

He sometimes dreams of Iris, of a life with her he will probably never have – he will certainly never have – and of two wonderful children, twins – a boy and a girl – who were supposed to be theirs.

A weariness settles over him anytime he thinks of her these days. She is like a constant reminder of what has been lost to him, to both of them, and it drains nearly everything from him.

Barry doesn’t want to imagine how she will look at him, the betrayal and hurt and anger and confusion…

But Barry knows that it doesn’t really matter as, in the end, none of this is any more real than a dream. It was never supposed to be like it is now. Reality has been gutted that night his mother died and he is tired of living in its corpse.

Barry reaches for the pen next to him on the table. His eyes stay focus on that man in front of him and he thinks of the power that runs through his body nearly constantly these days.

The speed force – what a funny name – would welcome him back like a long lost child after this and he would seek it out just like that because there is no lightening rod left in this world for him. This is not his world, this is not his life and he is so, so tired of it all.

Barry doesn’t hesitate as he moves.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, that piece of - very depressing - story just overcame me about an hour ago and I had to get it out of my system.
> 
> I have wondered for a while now why Barry - who has quite a close connection to the speed force (or maybe even is the source fo it), which is the connection between different realities - wouldn't have some kind of knowledge over what his initial life has been meant to be (similar to how Cisco remembered his own death from the altered timeline). We know that Barry lives in an alternated reality thanks to Eobard (that psychotic twerp) and I found the notion of him remembering what could have been and knowing what he has lost very sad.
> 
> Well, anyway, I wasn't really planning on writing this but I still like how it turned out. :o)
> 
> Please don't be too hard on my regarding my gramma and spelling, I am no native speaker and I just quickly scribbled it down. ;)
> 
> Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed it as well and I would love to hear from you!


End file.
